What’s more important to your potential customer?
When I lay the question out like that, I think it’s pretty simple to see that our potential customers are only interested in “what you do for them”.
But when constructing marketing materials and sales presentations, I think many marketers revert back to “what you do” and that falls flat with prospects.
What got me thinking about this was a conversation I had over the weekend with a friend who does sales for an agency targeting contractors. We were discussing the impact of the roll out ChatGPT Search last week (a topic for a future Blink) and he mentioned that a few months back he kept getting on sales calls with contractors and losing out to an agency pushing “voice search”.
My friend was frustrated that…
Let me share with you what I told my friend and hopefully that might resonate with any of you wrestling with the same concerns.
Before I was a marketer, I was an engineer in the tech industry. Trust me, I understand the fierce desire to create a new shiny toy: my startup created an iPhone before the iPhone. I know all too well what this gold rush feels like.
But in the agency space, there isn’t the same gold rush. If you’re a typical agency, you don’t have a full stack development team. You are using the same toys that are available to everyone else.
Sure, the guy selling “voice search” has a newer technology, but I think we’re selling him short if we attribute his success to only to the new technology. I’m guessing that he’s made the case that he has something unique AND it can solve his prospect’s problems.
So how can you compete? I’d recommend looking at “what you do” and shining that up to look unique. And then I would…
Shine Up What You Do For Them
It’s great that you have a new method, a new system, a new plan even if the only thing that is new is the shine that you put on it. But you have to connect it to what’s in it for them.
The shiny new toy gets their attention but you then have to make the case how it will solve their problems. For instance, in the home services space, I’d be looking to answer for: more calls, better qualified calls, higher margin calls, etc.
As an agency owner, you should always be on the lookout for that next shiny toy. Maybe ChatGPT Search is it. Maybe it’s something else. You should definitely keep an eye out for it.
Shine up what you do. And what you do for them.
